


these lifelines of ours, they're forever intertwined

by ladykestrel



Category: The Winner's Trilogy - Marie Rutkoski
Genre: Drabble Collection, F/M, some may contain spoilers
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-03-20
Updated: 2015-10-17
Packaged: 2018-03-18 19:03:33
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 7
Words: 3,737
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3580479
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ladykestrel/pseuds/ladykestrel
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>sometimes the right person for you is not the one you were meant to hold;</p><p>or just a compilation of short drabbles about a warrior girl and a boy who had to grow up too fast.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. these insecurities will wear you down, love

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> or an au of kestrel and arin's life after the dust settles down.

Long after the truth has come out and the royal engagement broken, Arin still gets bits and pieces of lingering doubt inside himself. Him and Kestrel would be in bed, his fingers gently caressing the skin of her bare back, when the past would come rushing in, almost knocking Arin overboard. He never tells Kestrel about those moments.

Despite him keeping quiet, Kestrel always, _always_ notices whenever doubt creeps its way into Arin’s mind. Guilt and shame flood her, drown her, point their nasty fingers at her in accusation. Blame is all Kestrel could feel in those moments as Arin’s hands, or lips, or eyes falter for a fraction of a second before refocusing back on the present.

And despite Kestrel’s reassurances, Arin still needs to make sure he’s not deluding himself. (He’s fed up with seeing only what he wants to see.)

“You’re not going to disappear, or leave me again, are you?” Arin would ask, his heart in his eyes.

Kestrel has answered this question a million times before, and she will answer it a million more if that’s what it takes. She can see it in Arin that he needs this, needs _her_. “Never again,” Kestrel vows.

Calloused fingers, rough from years of labor, would resume their journey up and down the slopes of her body, and Kestrel would dive into the waves of emotion that they entice in her. She would let her primal instincts take control, muting everything but the feel of Arin’s touch on her body.

Once or twice, still blinded by doubt, Arin would ask, “Don’t you ever want more than what I can give you?”

Kestrel would push up, prop herself on her elbows, and turn to him. She’d look straight in his pale grey eyes, the color of storm clouds, and smile. “I just want this,” she’d tell him. Arin would pull her closer, closer, closer, until nothing stands between them. “I just want you,” Kestrel would mutter when her lips are right on top of his.

Arin would bury his hands in Kestrel’s hair and kiss her senseless. Because, finally, there is nothing, and no one, stopping him from claiming her as his.


	2. we're a puzzle whose pieces no longer fit

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> or an alternative take of the winner's crime, chapter eight. kind of.

“Prove it to me,” he said. “Tell me he’s all that you desire.” He was getting dangerously close, their chests almost touched with every inhale, his voice already in herear.

“He is all that I desire,” she breathed. 

“I think you can do better than that.” Arin tipped her chin up, forced her eyes to stay on his. “Prove it, make me believe you.”

Kestrel’s breath fell short. She was having trouble with the rises and falls. Air had clogged in her throat, suffocating her slowly as Arin closed the final slip of distance between them. Hands at her waist. He breathed with her, into her. She was a puzzle, pieces, once ordered, fell apart in Arin’s hands. 

“He’s all that I want.” Kestrel knew it wasn’t the prince her words were meant for.  


They came together. Lips interlocked, like something lost had finally been found. Pieces fell together and the puzzle was solved at last. Kestrel and Arin fit into each other in a way only things meant to go together did. They were their own solutions.

Arin gripped the balustrade. Kestrel felt the window’s cold surface on her back. She leaned into him, hands settling on the back of his dress shirt, over it, under it. _Falling, falling, falling._ She was falling, jagged pieces of her flying everywhere. A sigh escaped her lips as Arin kissed her jawline, the slope of her neck, her exposed collarbones. Her leg came in between his, pulling their bodies even closer together. 

Then she remembered.

Kestrel stilled as if dipped in cold water. The hands at Arin’s back went limp, her fingertips numbing against the feel of his skin under them. She pulled away. Arin drew back from her.

“No,” Kestrel heard herself say. Silver lies were spilling off her silver tongue. “I don’t want this.”

In the deafening silence, she heard a heart shattering. She longed to help Arin pick up the pieces. Instead, she had to walk all over them. 

At least now they had a matching set.

Perhaps they were not puzzles at all, but broken shards of fragile glass. Like the necklace at Kestrel’s throat. Scattered, then tied together in a string. But glass left sharp edges, and Kestrel and Arin had been cut too many times by each other’s ends.

“Liar.” 

Kestrel pictured the window behind her, the cracks that would appear under the right amount of pressure. Not enough to break the glass, but enough to puncture. She pictured spider web-like fractures moving up and up the surface. If she kept pushing, they would split. The window would fall to the floor in colored fragments.

She imagined her blood, crimson drops, staining the glass.

Kestrel left before more shards could break off.


	3. the face of change

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> or; the one where kestrel plays for arin while he's busy changing her world.

Kestrel wasn’t sure when society functions became this dull to her. It suddenly was exhausting to sit and listen to the same chats she’d heard at the last party she went to. All gossip was old, and even the slightly newer details did not excite her as they should have, since Kestrel had already guessed at them long ago. Nothing seemed to be happening, or at least Kestrel did not notice it happen.

Even beating Irex at Bite and Sting had lost its appeal. Still, Kestrel played, then robbed the young lord of the coins he’d bet. She played against Benix and Ronan and her other friends who invited her to a round of games. When time for tea and sweets came, Kestrel chatted with lady Faris and all the others who claimed to know more about this lord or this lady’s secrets.

Kestrel acted as if everything were normal. Even when it wasn’t.

She hadn’t noticed the change, she hadn’t noticed its growing presence until now. Kestrel wasn’t sure what has changed, either, only that there was a difference between then and now. Of course, nothing sat still as time passed, things went from this to that, like moths, they morphed into something else entirely. 

Perhaps, Kestrel thought as she looked across the room, the change lay inside her. 

Her escort sat still at the other end of lady Faris’ beautiful sitting room, his gaze watchful, taking in the surroundings. Kestrel watched him watch the guests and servers. She watched the rise and fall of his shoulders, the slight tremble in his pose, the urge to frown tugging at his lips. Arin’s grey eyes found hers and Kestrel saw something in them, but was too far away to tell what it was. 

Arin looked away first.

After finishing her cup of lemon tea, Kestrel thanked Faris for the lovely afternoon and bid her goodbye. Lady Faris pleasantly expressed her gratitute that Kestrel had been her guest, not commenting on the early hour she was leaving at. Ignoring all the curious stares of people she was supposed to know and interact with, Kestrel headed for the door, knowing her escort was close behind. That knowledge alone put her mind at ease too much that Kestrel cared to admit.

They didn’t speak on the carriage ride home. After arriving at the villa, Kestrel went to her rooms. It was much later when she saw him again. The sight of him took Kestrel aback when she saw Arin in the foyer after dinner. Lirah was talking to him, asking him about something Kestrel didn’t quite catch while Arin gave a curt reply that sounded more like a grunt. The two slaves still hadn’t noticed Kestrel and she took the opportunity to get closer.

Later, Kestrel would think of a good excuse for eavesdropping. She would tell herself it was in her right to know what Lirah and Arin had been talking about. She would lie to herself about her true reasons.

Lirah took a step closer. “Do you ever smile?” she asked in a small voice. “I don’t think I’ve hardly even seen you since you came here.” Kestrel’s heart pounded in wait for Arin’s response.

“Is there anything worth smiling for?” was all that he said. After that Kestrel turned and took the opposite way to her chambers.

Days later, Kestrel found a familiar tile on one of the piano’s keys. She almost smiled. Arin arrived a few short minutes later, Kestrel having sent the steward to fetch him.

They played and answered each other’s questions. Arin won the last round and asked Kestrel to play for him again. Her fingers found the notes with too much eagerness and Kestrel’s entire body buzzed with the excitement of playing. She convinced herself this was how she felt every time she played.

When the melody faded out, the last of its notes hanging in the air, Kestrel looked over to Arin. His lips had turned up at the corners. In his smile, Kestrel saw the face of change.


	4. your promises are worth nothing

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> or; a conversation kestrel and arin have in the middle of kestrel’s dressing room

In Herran’s country side bloomed a flower in shades of purple. If you were to touch it, its petals shied away, hiding within themselves, retreating. As a child, pouring over botany books, Arin had been fascinated with this strange ability, how it manifested. 

A soft rustle brought him out of his thoughts. Arin pried his eyes away from the ceiling.

Looking at Kestrel now reminded him of that flower, of the way it shrank back from the slightest touch. He saw her recoil from him, saw how she closed herself up against the though of him. Arin’s chest tightened. He took a tentative step toward Kestrel.

“Don’t,” she warned him. Her disgust filled the small room. Arin could almost breathe it in.

“Why do you have to be so difficult?” Arin ran a hand through his hair. “You’re not helping-”

Kestrel cut him off, “Did you think I would make it easy for you? That I would throw myself at your knees and let you take me away without protest?” She scoffed. “You are a greater fool than I had you for, if you expected me to come quietly.”

“I expected you to be smarter than this!” Arin exclaimed. Kestrel tried for the door but his body covered the whole frame. He blocked her path. “Kestrel, please try to understand.”

“Oh, I understand plenty. And I would sooner be struck down by all your gods than be your slave,” she all but spit out.

Arin flinched as if Kestrel’s words had slapped him. He sensed her anger, felt it coil around him like a snake. “Listen to me,” Arin said, “you know why I said that. You know I had no other choice.” 

But Arin could see that Kestrel didn’t want to listen to him. She said, “You honestly think I would believe you are trying to protect me? After everything you’ve done? You really are a fool, Arin.”

“I know it might not seem so, but Kestrel. Please. I need you to believe it for one moment.” His tone had taken on a desperate, pleading tone. Arin begged Kestrel to read his thoughts, to see.

But she didn’t. Kestrel recoiled from him, a flower retreating back to its stem. She had been so open, in the carriage, as confessions slipped through her lips. She’d looked at Arin with such clear eyes, her soul reflected through them, laid bare for him to see. Then the realization of his betrayal shook the carriage, shook Kestrel, more than any explosion. She drew back, and Arin knew she would never turn to him again.

“I wouldn’t let anyone harm you,” Arin tried again. Kestrel was a reasonable person, a logical one. But she was human too, and humans had a habit of letting their emotions dictate their reasoning from time to time. Arin couldn’t blame her, not when he’d so suddenly flipped Kestrel’s entire world out from under her feet. 

“You already have.” It was as if Kestrel had stabbed him. The truth echoed in Arin, sending waves of sharp pain through his heart. He never meant to, he wanted to say. But Kestrel saw things for what they were. It was why the god of lies loved her.

Arin opened the door and escorted her out without making anymore promises.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> +title is from chapter 28 of the winner's curse;  
> +this is set after chapter 27, but before 28;  
> +the flower is a made up combination of the geranium platypetalum’s appearance and the mimosa putica’s “sensitivity”;  
> +the original sentence prompt was "i need you to believe it for one second" but i changed ‘second’ to ‘moment’ since i’m not sure the means of measuring time in twc are the same as ours.


	5. splashes of colour against a black canvas

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> or; a post-twcrime au, in which life for kestrel becomes too colourless, so she takes to her dreams instead.

She wasn’t sure when she’d started living in dreams. 

It had been gradual, how her waking hours had transformed themselves into nightmares, and only sleep offering solace. Kestrel relished in those few fleeting moments, when her mind would allow her to dream in colours and silks. The images were so vivid, so lifelike, that it was hard to remember she’d ever been in the darkness. Her dreams were the glass panels of Arin’s home, dyeing the scenery in her dreams the richest hues, yet shattered when Kestrel woke, leaving her with only shattered pieces of a once beautiful mosaic. 

Where her sleep was drowned in colour, Kestrel’s reality was doused in black and grey. At night – she thought it was night, it was easy for one to lose track of dawns and dusks – she could almost forget about the dirt in her hair and the soot on her flesh. 

Kestrel dreamt of Arin. Each night, she dreamt of him, of them, spending an ordinary day together, him teaching her how to sow on a button, and her playing for his ears only. She dreamt of horseback rides and picnics, where not Ronan, but Arin fed her pastries and whispered in her ear. Each time she woke up, Kestrel felt the bittersweet pain of a sharp piece digging into her heart, reminding her.

She wasn’t sure when she’d started living in dreams, but there was little else to do, down in the cold, cold earth.

“How did you endure?” Verex asked her months later. Kestrel thought of colorful mosaics.

“I escaped inside my head,” she told her friend. “The world was livelier there. And I was, too. It’s quite funny, how I lived for the moments that kept me from being awake. How everything was so much more _alive_ when I was asleep.” Kestrel laughed, but it was like a broken bell that could not ring.

“The reality is always different,” Verex remarked, “less chromatic.”

Kestrel looked across the room, settling on Arin and his shining grey eyes that refused to meet her own, on his disarrayed hair and how some strands looked lighter than others. She looked at him, and pictured splashes of colour against a black canvas. 

“Yes. But not always,” Kestrel told Verex, and her lips lifted in a sad smile.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i'm not entirely sure what this is or what is supposed to be happening or why kestrel, verex and arin are all in the same room, but i hope you enjoy nonetheless!


	6. the taste of sugar and honey melting on your lips

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> or; kestrel and arin try their hand at baking again.   
> (it does not end well.)

Kestrel rubbed her forehead, exhausted and sweaty. When she turned her eyes up, Arin was grinning stupidly at her. “What’s the matter with you?”  


“You have flour all over your face,” he said. Kestrel looked at her hands, her fingers and palms pale white with powder. Arin had begun laughing, his own face smudged with flour, or perhaps it was sugar. Kestrel turned her back on him.  


His laughing ceased. “Kestrel…” Arin’s voice trailed off. Kestrel felt him draw nearer, pressing his hands on her shoulders. She tried not to shake too much. 

It happened in a blink. And this time, it was Kestrel’s turn to laugh. 

Arin’s face was covered with powdered sugar, some speckles still floating in the air around him, settling, as he coughed out the white substance. He brought his hands up to wipe it away, the sugar sticking to the heat of his palms. When Kestrel saw his eyes, she knew Arin would not go without a fair fight. She quickly looked around the kitchen table, assessing. She grabbed a wooden spoon still slick with honey and waved it in front of her, like a sword. Arin, however, managed to quickly disarm her, with only mild casualties. He grabbed her wrist, pulled her close, and ran his fingers in her hair. Kestrel’s eyes widened with the realisation of what he’d done. She jerked free and threw left-over dough from the table at him. 

Flour and sugar dusted the air, coating the kitchens under a pale, powdery fog. Ingredients flew across the room, hitting heads and whitening clothes. It was as if it had snowed inside, and was snowing still. Laughter chimed all throughout, as constant as bells ringing. Arin would dive under a table and hit a limb, while Kestrel accidentally blew more flour in her face. They ran around the kitchens like little children, playing in the winter snow. Quite some time passed before they called a truce. They weren’t sure if it were because of the exhaustion or the ammo running short. Kestrel plopped herself on a dirty chair and began giggling uncontrollably, Arin joining her from where he’d sat, perched on the edge of the table. “We should perhaps go about cleaning this mess up?” she said.

Arin bent down and kissed her instead. It tasted of honey and sugar and brought back sweet memories. Kestrel wrapped her white-stained arms around his neck and leaned into the kiss. 

The kitchens remained as they were. 

Later, a kitchen lady caught Arin in the courtyard. Kestrel was sitting on the other side of the fountain, book in hand. Arin smiled down at the woman, an old servant, and friend, of his family. “How did you like my recipe?” she asked.

“Just fine, the sweets were… They were really,” Arin turned his head toward Kestrel, meeting her eyes, before continuing, “sweet.” Kestrel quickly looked away, suddenly too preoccupied with her book.  



	7. there are so very few stars left

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> kestrel struggles with her hair. arin offers his assistance. one of the many ways to cope after the downfall.

Arin knocked twice, and waited for the door to open. When it didn’t, he knocked twice more. Again, no answer came from inside. He reached for a set of keys in his pocket, yet, the hand quivered. 

The hallway was silent and the sound of a door clicking open resonated through the space. 

Carefully stepping in, Arin’s eyes darted around the room. The curtains were drawn, letting sunlight shower in. On the table, where a bottle of ink and empty parchments sat, also lay a breakfast tray, untouched, the food and tea long since gone cold. The stack of books which had been brought in some days ago sat alone on a cushioned chair. Arin crossed the room in hurried, long strides, heading directly for the sleeping chamber. Its doors were shut. Not bothering with formalities, Arin strode right in.

And caught himself midstep.

Kestrel sat in front of a mirror. In her hands, she shakily held a pair of scissors. Her eyes, burning, were fixed on the mirror, staring straight into the scrissors’ reflection as she had raised them to her hair. 

“What are you doing,” Arin blurted. Kestrel’s shoulders stiffened. The sharp object slipped through her hands and clanged on the wooden surface of the armoire, which covered the sound of her gasp. 

In the mirror, they locked eyes. Kestrel was still standing still as a rock, cold and inanimate. Slowly, Arin went forward, without breaking eye contact. “What are you doing,” he repeated.

“My hair was in the way,” Kestrel said evenly. “I wanted to get it out.”

“By cutting it?”  


“Yes.”  


“Don’t cut it.”

Kestrel turned around. Arin now saw the uncertainty, the doubts and fears, that had not been in her reflection. Her brows were furrowed only slightly, legs crossed on one side of the chair. Kestrel’s entire body was schooled into neutrality. Except for her hands, which were gripping the back of the chair, and her eyes, that had always betrayed her. “Braid it instead.”

She looked away. “I don’t want to.”  


“Or, perhaps, you _can’t_.” She would still not meet his eyes again. Arin’s expression softened, the tension in his face released. “I’ll show you,” he said in a low voice. “I’ll teach you.” Making sure Kestrel was comfortable first, he reached a hand toward her hair. At first she tensed, almost flinching, and Arin swallowed back the bitter taste. But as his fingertips threaded through the golden locks, both of them exhaled in relief.

“This is how you do it,” Arin told Kestrel, taking three small stands of hair from near her face. He twisted one above the others, and then again and again, in a simple braiding pattern. Left, right, left, right. “The middle strand always need to be in your hand. Like this,” he showed her two more times, before the locks got too thin to be braided. Without releasing the newly-formed braid, Arin reached into the armoire’s drawer, producing a thin leather strip. He wrapped it around and tied it securely around Kestrel’s small braid. His lipped pulled up. “There.”  


Kestrel fingered the pattern, ran her fingers down the length of it, marveling. 

“Your hair’s gotten longer,” Arin said.  


“It’s been so long since I cut it.” Images of a basket full of gold entered both their minds. “I haven’t- not since…” Kestrel trailed off.

“I remember.”  


“I wanted to do it again.”  


“But you didn’t.”  


“Because you stopped me.”  


Arin knelt on the carpeted floor, now on eye level with her. “No, it was not because of that.” Kestrel, for the second time, ripped her gaze away. She stared at the carpet. “Did you learn?” Arin asked, filling the fallen silence. Kestrel gave a slight nod, still not meeting his eyes. “Do you want to try for yourself?”

Tracing the braid’s pattern again, Kestrel looked up. She turned to face the mirror. Arin faced it, too. He watched as she picked three strands, and tried to ignore the way her hands trembled. He tried to stop his stomach from sinking at the sight of Kestrel’s fingertips, on the reminders of where she’d been and what she’d endured.

She didn’t get it right on the first try. Nor on the second. But, gradually, Kestrel made one thread, then another. Arin encouraged her, saying she’d gotten the technique down, that she was doing well. And when the braid unraveled in Kestrel’s hand, she tried again. Arin had to show her what to do several more times. 

Kestrel, at last, finished her own braid. Her hair was now a jumble of thin and thick, larger and smaller braids, which swayed as Kestrel tried to see them better in the mirror. Her mouth lifted, a tentative smile. Her amber eyes shone, which made Arin miss that light more. He took all the braided locks, pulled them back, and gathered them into one large, complex braid. He smiled when he was done.

In the reflection, Kestrel was smiling too.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> +was supposed to be fluff but... i don't think i even tried;  
> +set somewhere, perhaps, maybe, during the winner's kiss;  
> +chapter title is from stevie nicks' "gold and braid";


End file.
